Scientology Daily Digest: Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Tommy Davis’s deposition in the Monique Rathbun litigation is scheduled for today (Wednesday) in Austin.

Thursday marks the anniversary of Lisa McPherson’s death.

Tony Ortega’s Blog

Today’s regular installment in the series where Claire Headley, recently joined by “tech” veteran Bruce Hines, walks readers through the process of actually doing Scientology, featured the OT III “Wall of Fire.” In this one, as most of us know from reading tons of stuff over the years, Hubbard introduces the Xenu mythos in an unveiling of the holiest of holies of Scientology out of a locked briefcase. Even with all the hype and build-up before opening the envelope with some notes scrawled in Hubbard’s handwriting, apparently quite a few people do wake up and say, “WTF?” on their way out the door.

Apparently in this level, Hubbard giveth and Hubbard taketh away. Part of the study involves explaining why you can’t show anyone else, even other Scientologists, that you can levitate ashtrays or do any of the super powers that OT’s are supposed to have. This is obviously a key reason that people still believe in the OT powers without any evidence that they produce any results; they know that all those OT’s are doing amazing things in private; they’re just not allowed to show anything more interesting than keen parking space hunting capabilities.

Selected comments:

Several commenters suggested sending Christmas cards to Shelly Miscavige at the “Twin Peaks” site and also to various execs in the Hole. I’m sure the cult won’t bother with those postal regulations that make it illegal for anyone other than the intended recipient to receive their mail.

Phil de Fontenay describes the alarm system in use in some orgs to prevent the materials from being stolen. The doors won’t open when the alarm cable is temporarily disconnected moving the Holy of Holies from the safe to the table.

Mike Rinder’s Blog

Today, Mike put up a fairly important post, with some estimates on the total number of Scientologists in the world, via the work of a source who did the actual number crunching. They’re estimating 25,000 to 35,000. The numbers for the most part look credible, though I think the Sea Org size is a bit high, as is the estimated public coming in through the mission system. “Deep Six” gives some further details that are useful.

Forum Sites (WWP, ESMB, OCMB)

Apparently, Tory Christman was involved in leading a rescue of someone from a Narconon facility in Michigan. ESMB and WWP both cover the adventure.

Both ESMB and WWP provide more detail on the blight of the empty Philadelphia Ideal Org building, which was purchased six years ago.

Gossip web site “Crazy Days and Nights,” purportedly by an entertainment industry lawyer, revealed the identity of a couple featured in a blind item from January. The site claims this actor with a distinctive name tried having sex with his new wife on their wedding night (back in June 2012) and he hasn’t gone after her since. The recent piece claims that the groom is Scientologist Giovanni Ribisi.